When I’m speaking at public events, I sometimes take notes with me in case I lose my train of thought and need to be reminded of what I was planning to say. Plenty of people do this. It’s completely normal behavior. You know what’s not normal? When you’re heading into an event where your responses merely have to be simple expressions of genuine empathy, and you have to write that down so you can remember to say it. That brings us to Donald Trump today.

In what initially sounded like a sick joke but has since been reported by several major news outlets including CNN and MSNBC, Donald Trump went into a “listening session” today with the survivors from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. All he had to do was listen to the students and teachers tell their stories, and act like a human in response. Instead, he was seen holding a note card that included several basic responses including “I Hear You.”

No really. Trump’s people had to write down the words “I Hear You” on a notecard and put it in his hands, so he would know to say “I Hear You” once each of the survivors was done pouring their heart out. Sorry, but no normally functioning human needs to be reminded to say these kinds of things. These aren’t names and dates, or complex policy positions. These are basic human emotions. Donald Trump doesn’t have them.

As we’ve seen Donald Trump consistently act horrifyingly on the national stage, both before and after the election, there has been quite a bit of debate as to whether he’s a sociopath. Moments like this are a reminder that, yes, he is. He absolutely is. Not only that, the staffers closest to him know full well that he’s a sociopath. That’s why they gave him the note card with basic human responses written on them.

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